Penguins

The signs of penguins in love were unmistakable at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach on Monday: puffing their chests, standing on tiptoes while clicking their beaks together, belting out donkey-like brays. The colony of 13 Magellanic penguins, which recently moved from holding pens to a new $1.5-million exhibit that opens to the public Thursday, has seethed with courting rituals since the arrival of breeding season. One pair is already tending to a newly hatched chick.

PITTSBURGH -- As much as the Kings' 3-2 victory over the Penguins was about numbers -- highlighted by their seven-for-seven penalty-killing effort as they tied a franchise record with their eighth straight road win -- their success was equally about their attitude and being at their best when the situation seemed to be at its worst. In earning one-goal wins in Philadelphia, Washington and Pittsburgh in a four-day span and in holding NHL scoring leader Sidney Crosby to one assist Thursday while blanking the league's most potent power play, the Kings turned apparent adversity into an advantage to win their fifth straight game and 13th in their last 16. They finished play against the East at 21-8-3, tying San Jose and St. Louis for the most wins by a West team against the East.

Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby watched the Penguins raise their Stanley Cup banner, then got the NHL champions off to a familiar start by scoring their first two goals during a 3-2 victory against the New York Rangers on Friday night. Crosby and Tyler Kennedy scored 1:08 apart in the second period to give the Penguins a 3-1 lead and allow them to withstand Marian Gaborik's first goal for the Rangers, the only scoring during the third period. Malkin, the league's leading scorer last season, and Crosby each got their first of the season and Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves, including a glove-hand stop on Vaclav Prospal in the first period.

PITTSBURGH - Greetings from Pittsburgh. The Penguins and Kings held their morning skates at the Consol Energy Center in preparation for their game Thursday, and in talking to players and coaches from both sides afterward, the links between the teams became a recurring theme. Penguins Coach Dan Bylsma and assistant coach Tony Granato both played for the Kings, and Penguins defenseman Rob Scuderi, of course, was a key member of the Kings' 2012 Stanley Cup championship team. He departed last summer as a free agent, and the Kings have keenly felt his absence.

What happened last week to Ted Engelbart's penguins that are usually found with the restaurant listings at the back near Restaurant Notebook? It's the first thing we look for, with everyone saying, "Where are the penguins eating today?" So where were they? BONNIE IKEMURA & FAMILY Los Angeles Last week they were vacationing (They sent the post card above) . This week they're on Page 93.

Wild Adelie penguins have killer appetites - and they rarely miss a target. Neither fish nor krill can escape the Antarctic seabirds, according to scientists who outfitted them with cameras to spy on their feeding habits. Understanding an animal's feeding patterns can be crucial to gauging the population's health and survival. The study, published this week in PNAS, provides a look at the foraging patterns of these penguins and provides future researchers with a way to study other penguins' mysterious eating habits.

Boston's Tim Thomas stopped 27 shots for his second shutout of the season, and Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby was held without a point for the fifth straight game as Bruins defeated the Penguins, 3-0. Matt Hunwick backhanded a rebound under the crossbar, then had to wait 77 seconds for a whistle so NHL officials could consult a video replay and give Boston the goal. Mark Recchi had the 900th assist of his career, Daniel Paille had his first goal with the Bruins, and Patrice Bergeron scored a short-handed empty-netter with 3.5 seconds left as Boston won consecutive games for the first time this season.

The last four Stanley Cup champions advanced to this season's conference finals, a remarkable feat in an era of parity created by the NHL's salary cap. Here's how they match up: (Editor's note: Helene Elliott has picked 11 of 12 series correctly, and predicted the exact number of games six times. The Hall of Fame hockey writer's only misstep was picking the New York Rangers over Boston): 1. PITTSBURGH 36-12 (72 points) Rd. 1: def. N.Y. Islanders, 4-2. Rd. 2: def. Ottawa, 4-1. 4. BOSTON 28-14-6 (62 points)

Playing without young star Sidney Crosby for the first time this season, the Penguins' winning streak came to an end Tuesday when Pittsburgh lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 4-1. The Penguins (28-9-0), who had won 15 consecutive games heading in to Tuesday night's matchup with the Sabres (14-17-6), were two games shy of tying the NHL record of 17 straight wins set by the 1992-93 Penguins. Veteran right wing Jarome Iginla, whom Pittsburgh recently acquired from the Calgary Flames for a pair of college prospects and a first-round draft pick, scored his first goal for the Penguins -- the team's only goal of the night.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal, Sidney Crosby added an assist, and 13 of Pittsburgh's 18 skaters got onto the scoresheet in the Penguins' 5-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. Matt Cooke had a goal and an assist, Kris Letang had two assists, and Tyler Kennedy, Evgeni Malkin, Ruslan Fedotenko and Alex Goligoski had goals as the Penguins won their sixth straight and pushed their record to an NHL-best 8-1. Paul Kariya scored for the Blues, 1-3-1 in their last five games.

PITTSBURGH - When the Kings wrap up their three-game, four-day trip Thursday against Pittsburgh, they'll also finish the non-conference portion of their schedule. They might not want it to end because they've had such success against the East this season, at 20-8-3. Among West teams, only San Jose (21-7-4) and St. Louis (21-5-2) have more wins against the East. But playing exclusively within the West means less travel, and that's always welcome. After Thursday, the Kings will have eight games remaining, four against teams currently holding playoff spots and four against non-playoff teams.

Times columnist Helene Elliott rates the pluses and minuses in the NHL from the previous week: + The Dallas Stars' medical staff acted quickly and decisively in treating forward Rich Peverley after he collapsed on the bench last week because of an irregular heartbeat. He will undergo a heart procedure and will sit out the rest of the season, but the medical personnel on duty at the American Airlines Center saved his life. + Kudos to New York Islanders forward John Tavares for reaching out to Jake Lotocki, an 11-year-old Winnipeg boy who was rudely heckled for wearing a Tavares jersey to a recent Jets game.

After a long legal battle, Penguin Books India has agreed to remove a book about Hinduism from circulation in India, and to destroy all copies of book in the country, a decision that drew immediate criticism from writers and literary groups around the world. The Hindu nationalist group Shiksha Bachao Andolan filed a civil suit against Penguin Books India in 2011, claiming that Wendy Doniger's “The Hindus: An Alternative History,” disparaged Hinduism and was guilty of “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.” Doniger, a professor of religion at the University of Chicago, said in a statement released by PEN Delhi that she lamented her publisher's decision to settle the suit with the group.

Magellanic penguin chicks in Argentina have a new killer to fear -- death by climate change. The downy chicks were already vulnerable to predation and starvation in the first few weeks of their lives, but now they are threatened by increasing rainstorms caused by changing weather patterns. "Climate change is a new mortality factor," said Dee Boersma, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington. "It didn't use to kill these penguins and now it does. " Boersma and her team have been studying penguins for 28 years at Punta Tombo on the Atlantic side of Argentina -- home of the largest Magellanic penguin colony in the world.

The Sid and Scud show was practically hijacked at Staples Center by a man put on waivers by the Carolina Hurricanes last March. It was a lively performance from forward Jussi Jokinen, who had a hand in the first three Pittsburgh goals - one goal and two assists in the Penguins' 4-1 win over the Kings on Thursday night. Penguins star Sidney Crosby had one assist and goalie Jeff Zatkoff, a Kings draft pick in 2006 and a fixture for them in the American Hockey League for parts of four seasons, got the win. The Kings are staggering toward the now-welcome Olympic break in sight with one win in eight games.

At least Sidney Crosby didn't have to field questions Wednesday about never having scored against the Kings. He did just that on March 20, 2009, against goalie Jonathan Quick at Pittsburgh. The "new" story angles about the Pittsburgh Penguins star and freshly minted captain of Team Canada for the upcoming Olympics are few and far between, so much so it became a story line in Edmonton earlier this month that Crosby had never scored against the Oilers. (He took care of that gaping hole on his resume, by the way.)

More than 370 penguins that mysteriously washed up on Brazil's equatorial beaches were flown south on a huge air force cargo plane and released closer to the frigid waters they call home, advocates said. Onlookers cheered as the young Magellanic penguins were set free on a beach in southern Brazil and scampered into the ocean, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said in a statement. It called the penguin release the largest in South America. The penguins were among nearly 1,000 that have washed up on Brazil's northeastern coast in recent months, said group spokesman Chris Cutter.

Re "Do penguin brides get cold feet?" editorial, Sept. 13 The tone of this editorial was extremely irritating to me. I saw "March of the Penguins" because I am a nature lover, and most of the movies out there have no believable premise or good actors. Your inference "flocked ... like lemmings" indicates a lack of appreciation for the fact that the majority of people are looking for entertainment that has substance, pleasance and even reality. MARK SAVALLA Altadena

Times columnist Helene Elliott rates the pluses and minuses in the NHL from the previous week: Plus + Despite being plagued by injuries - they lost four of their top six defensemen at one point - the Pittsburgh Penguins have won 12 of their last 14 games and lead the East. Their latest injury was to first-line winger Pascal Dupuis, whose season might have ended when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament last Monday. But they did get valuable defenseman Rob Scuderi back from a broken ankle Sunday.